Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003) on Netflix
Dickie Roberts, a 1970s sitcom child star, now parks cars. To prove he can play an ordinary man, he hires a family to give him the normal childhood he never had.
- Netflix3.0/5
- IMDb5.6/1016,481 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes23%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dickie Roberts became famous as a child on the 1970s sitcom The Glimmer Gang, and his career stalled after the show was canceled. In his mid-thirties he parks cars at a restaurant and loses a celebrity boxing match in the first round. A friend who also grew up on television convinces him that a part in a new movie is his way back, and his agent Sidney tries to get him an audition, but the director tells him the role requires knowing how ordinary people live. Dickie grew up in the limelight, and his mother Peggy left once he stopped earning. He sells his autobiography for $30,000 and pays George and Grace Finney to take him in as a son for a month.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star (2003)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The film marked the last feature for Tony Dow, Adam Rich and Jay North before their deaths in 2022, 2023 and 2025, and was the last of Fred Berry's films released in his lifetime; he died less than two months after it came out.
- Fred Wolf and David Spade first wrote the idea in the 1990s as a Saturday Night Live sketch about a child star rampage spoofing The Silence of the Lambs, for Macaulay Culkin's week as host, but it was cut. Wolf later rebuilt it around a script called Child Star sent in by Tommy McNulty.
- The crew built a real treehouse in the back yard of the house used for the exterior scenes of the Finneys' home, and the real homeowners liked it so much that they asked the producers to leave it standing after filming.
- Paramount Pictures was sued for trademark infringement and dilution after the film showed unsafe use of a Slip 'n Slide without asking Wham-O's permission, the suit arguing the scene might encourage others to use it unsafely; a California court dismissed it.
